February 27, 2009--TP

This is a delicate but important subject. So I will be brief.

Environmentalists are attacking Mr. Whipple, claiming that his brand of TP and others like it—the soft, fluffy kind—is an ecological disaster.

Here from yesterday’s New York Times:

Fluffiness comes at a price: from millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.
Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.” [Emphasis added.]

(Full article, from the front page, linked below.)

The US, which is by far the largest user of TP, is also the smallest user of recycled paper—about 2 percent of the fiber we use is recycled; elsewhere, it averages 20 percent.

And since the softness Mr. Whipple pushes and we demand comes only from standing trees—for example, one eucalyptus tree produces just 1,000 rolls (not that many considering that per capita Americans use 23.6 a year, though clearly no one gathering these statistics surveyed anyone in my family!)—this national addiction comes at quite an environmental price. Not to say the extra cost of these “premium” rolls.

So while President Obama is seeking to change our various wasteful ways, one place he should look, and invest federal research money, is how to produce softness (let’s face it, Americans aren’t ever going to be happy using the kind of cardboardy stuff Europeans seem OK with) from recycled paper and not from old-growth forests.

On the other hand, while other parts of the economy have tanked, in 2008 the market for fluffy brands of TP actually expanded—it is up an incredible 40 percent from 2007.

It used to be thought that women’s skirt lengths reflected the state of the economy. Maybe that is now an obsolete measure. It’s become all about how much Charmin we use. It must be that during these painful times we want something, anything that feels good.